Featured Business

  Cruising the River in Style!

Shearwater River Cruises offers scheduled sightseeing tours, dinner cruises and charter services on the South Saskatchewan River downtown in Saskatoon. In 2007, the company added entertainment cruises into the mix, styled as “The Littlest Showboats in North America” featuring Saskatchewan entertainers.

Over the past three years these have included popular Saskatoon-based swing duo Paschall and Dahl, folk singer songwriter Eileen Laverty, and country music stars like Brad Johner and Eli Barsi.

Shearwater River Cruises has been delivering boat tours since the early nineties, beginning with birding tours at nearby Redberry Lake, part of the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve bearing the same name. In 1996, the company built a covered open-decked tour-boat for the city market, and in 2002 purchased the Queen of Ottawa (a canal-boat from the Rideau Canal in Ottawa). In 2008, Shearwater brought in the 45-foot Lady Chesley from Lake Winnipeg. Both these little ships have been re-fitted to provide a lounge atmosphere, and re-named the Saskatoon Princess and the Meewasin Queen, respectively.

Shearwater has its office and boat yard outside the city in the town of Hafford. The company is owned by Peter and Valerie Kingsmill, a couple with deep roots in the tourism and hospitality industry. The Kingsmills believe in customer service excellence and the importance of training; bridge staff and some stewards receive Marine Emergency Duties certification, and all stewards this year have Serve It Right Saskatchewan certification. The company and its owners have received a number of accolades and nominations, including Tourism Saskatchewan Rookie of the Year Award in 1996, and the Tourism Saskatchewan Marketing Excellence Award in 2007 (for the “Littlest Showboats” initiative). There is always something interesting going on with Shearwater and its personnel.

In 2008, the company entered into a (volunteer) joint venture with engineering consulting firm Stantec, Saskatoon Fire and Protective Services rescue divers, and the Meewasin Valley Authority to undertake an underwater archaelogical “dig” for artifacts from the 1908 sinking of the paddlewheeler City of Medicine Hat. One of the company’s First Officers, Leanne Schinkel, is a filmmaker by profession; together with two colleagues, Leanne began the production of a full-length feature documentary about the sunken ship and her colourful captain and owner, Horatio Hamilton Ross - a Scottish nobleman by birth. Shearwater River Cruises offers scheduled tours every day throughout the summer, departing from the company’s docks at the Mendel Art Gallery on Spadina Crescent downtown. The company also hosts dinner and luncheon cruises for chartered groups; both boats have enclosed cabins, heated if necessary, so rainy, cool weather is never an issue.Both ships are licensed to serve alcoholic beverages; meals for charter and dinner cruises are carefully prepared to Valerie’s specifications by Emco Finer Foods of Saskatoon.

You can find out more about The Littlest Showboats by visiting www.shearwatertours.com, or by telephoning 1-888-747-7572.